Never-ending

I've been tossing around an idea in my head for a post having to do with how easy it is to get caught up in the lives of people we don't know and probably never will meet, such as reality television characters, celebrities, movie stars, and - especially (for me, anyway) - bloggers.

Before I could get around to writing anything, though, I checked in on my favorite blog - "Somewhere on the Masthead," a sacred ritual I perform at least 12 times per day. My heart skipped a beat and my breath caught in my chest when I read Magazine Man's latest post... explaining the death of both his parents.

They were on their way to MM's house to meet their new baby granddaughter, and there was a pile up on the highway... they were killed on impact. MM's readers have been no stranger to his hilarious stories about his parents... I feel like I knew them myself. MM has an uncanny way of making anyone who happens upon his pages feel like they're part of the family... and I've been reading regularly for almost three years now, so I've been pretty much in like Flynn. In such a tragedy, it's nearly impossible not to imagine yourself and your loved ones in such a horrible position. As soon as my voice steadies and my eyes dry, I'll be calling my own parents.

Please keep MM and his family in your prayers... he has two young children who adored their grandparents and one newborn who would have followed suit if she was given the chance.

My heart, my thoughts, and my prayers are with you.

It's funny sometimes how quickly your life can be put into perspective. I woke up this morning hating the alarm clock, pleased to be awake only when I remembered the cold pizza leftover in the fridge. I walked into the office this morning planning to make fun of Jake - call his phone a couple times and hang up. Maybe make a joke or two about what a nerd I am that I was excited to find a typo on CNN's scrolling news banner this morning.

Then - at the risk of using a cliche - everything changed in an instant.

I had barely even removed my coat when I got a message informing me that a coworker had passed away last night. At first I didn't believe it - "but she's young and healthy," I said. What I didn't dare say aloud was but she's my friend, and I love her. It took ten minutes of denial and speculation and nervous whispers before it was confirmed.

My first thought was how I only gave her a hurried wave in the hallway yesterday. I was busy and not in the best mood. I didn't feel like stopping to talk, even though she could have cheered me right up. I was content in my sour mood. I thought I'll go up and see her tomorrow when I'm feeling better.

My second thought was of her granddaughter. I was about her age when my great-grandmother passed away, and I hardly remember her at all. I have two or three choppy memories of us together and one from her funeral, but that's it. I hate to think that this sweet little girl will barely remember the grandma she loved so much when she's a grown woman.

My third thought was how much this place is going to change without her. Everyone hopes to make an impact on the world during their time... and she most definitely did. She was the happiest, most cheerful person I think I'll ever meet in my life - there wasn't any bad news she couldn't turn around. My building is silent and somber today, and it will be for a time, but it won't stay that way forever. She'll turn this bad news around, too, and our hearts will be warmed with the memories of the effortless sunshine she brought to our lives and the special way she impacted all of us.

Love you.

"What you remember is not what they think you will remember. It is often not."

When I think about my grandpa - my Poppy Chuck who died almost seven years ago - the image that comes to mind is the placemats he had at his dining room table. He lived in a condo in Munster and bought only the finest things. Every appliance and piece of furniture was the best of its kind, and there are only six mediocre things I remember him owning: two red, fake Tiffany-glass candle holders, the kind you might expect to find in a small, Italian restaurant, and four cream-colored, vinyl placemats. We used to have Oreos and milk at that table, a younger version of me with my legs folded underneath for height, my elbows making round, semi-permanent indentations in the vinyl, and him smiling at me over the rims of his bifocals.

There was a small courtyard out front with wrought-iron patio furniture and pink impatiens, a heavy sliding-glass door that lead to the living room. He lived on the ground floor, and the woman on the second floor loved him - as she should have. He had an electronic scale in his bathroom, the face of which registered weight in red and announced each horrifying pound out in a mechanical voice. I got in trouble once for turning it on and waiting to hear the weight of the plunger - the voice was loud and had sold me out to my parents in the next room. From then on, every time I went in his bathroom, I tried to figure out how to override the voice component. When I finally did, I weighed every object on the shelves, in the cabinets, and along the shower wall.

He collected penguins. The huge entertainment center that took up an entire wall in his living room - and since his death has taken up an entire wall in my parents' living room - was lined with penguins. He had stuffed penguins, my favorite of which was a big, plump guy wearing pleather boots and a hat with a fuzzy ball at the tip, wind-up penguins, penguin pens and pencils, penguin statues, and penguin snowglobes. I always think that I would like to start collecting them, a way of inviting a piece of him to my own home, but I never do.

When I found out he had cancer, I was pulling my ponytail through the back of the burgandy beret I was required to wear to work at Showplace 16, a then-new movie theatre in the heart of The Region. When my mom left my room, I leaned on my dresser and cried, staring at myself in the mirror and wondering, "Why him?" and "Why don't you wear waterproof mascara?" After I reapplied, I called my boss and explained that my family was going to see my grandpa before his surgery tomorrow. She called me "honey" and said she was sorry; I could have the night off.

I drove separately because I wanted to be alone in my car to cry and listen to sad music. I told my parents it was because I wanted to show off my new used car to my uncle Carl and his girlfriend Karen, who would also be there. Inside, on the overstuffed furniture, everyone acted like it was normal for all of us to be together in such a capacity. No one mentioned what must have been on everyone's mind: tomorrow we will trust this man's life to a surgeon who knows nothing about the intricacies of this family, a surgeon whose obligation it is to save every diseased body that is brought before him. I drank diet root beer and tried to commit the scene to memory.

A week later and everything had gone well. In his weakened state, he had developed pneumonia, but that was to be expected, according to his doctors. I went to see him once after school; his hospital was in Hammond, so my mom wouldn't let me go alone. His eyes were closed and he had tubes in his arm. I sat on a chair at his side and answered his questions about school, singing, and art. He always wanted me to be an artist, dreamed that I'd one day have an instructional television show on PBS. Days later, I was at home watching City of Angels when Mom and Dad came back from the hospital. Dad stayed in the kitchen and Mom came to the living room. "How is he?" I asked, and she answered, "Poppy Chuck died." The Sarah McLachlan song "Angel" was playing in the background. It would take me five years to finally watch the rest of the movie.

My dad was sitting in the kitchen when I went to him, hugged him, and moved aside for my mom to put her arms around him. He looked up at her and said, "I'm an orphan now," his eyes so filled with tears that their blue seemed to go on forever. Three months later, his brother finally proposed to his girlfriend of ten years. My mom said that some situations make you rethink the events in your own life, and Chuck's death brought Carl to a lot of realizations about himself. I thought part of it might have been that Poppy Chuck loved Karen and, more than anything, wanted her to always be a part of our family.

His birthday was October 4 - when we'd call to sing to him, he'd always respond, "Ten-four, good buddy." He died at the end of September, just days before his 70th birthday.

Something about a particularly low Saturday evening just made me think of him. It's always like that, though. I can go for days without the thought of him crossing my mind, then something suddenly pops up to remind me.

Like a friend asking why I never let anyone call me Rebecca. "There's only one person who ever regularly called me Rebecca... other people have tried, since then, but it's never felt right." Although I do miss hearing it spoken outloud conversationally, some things are just sacred, I guess.

"I know a place where we can go..."

Sometimes you hear a song and you know it was written just for you. The song could not possibly apply to anyone else nor could it have such a significance to anyone else. My song is Don Henley's "The End of the Innocence." Pretty lame, I know... but every time I hear it, the rest of the world shuts off and it's just me and my memories.

This song has a special meaning for me because it brings me back to a time when I wasn't really sure what was going to happen to my family. My mom and dad had recently separated, and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. My dad was staying at his brother's house, and Timmy and I lived at home with Mom. I think I was in 6th or 7th grade, but I don't remember much of the concrete details from that time... I was really messed up, and a lot of what I remember is foggy.

I didn't have the close relationships with my parents then that I do now, but the most important thing in my life was pleasing them and making them proud... and I know it's cliche, but I absolutely thought the separation was because of something I did or did not do... maybe because of that one time they caught me sneaking in after curfew, maybe when I brought home a B+ instead of an A, maybe because I fought with my brother all the time.

But even though we weren't close, my dad and I still shared our musical tastes, and he left all his CDs at the house when he moved out. I used to start at the beginning of the alphabet and pick a new CD to listen to every day after school. I would put it in and lay on my bedroom floor, thinking of him and my mom. When I got to the letter H, Henley was the first I picked up. When I heard "The End of the Innocence" for the first time, I lost it... I remember exactly what it felt like to weep that hard... I had never cried like that before, and I've never done it since. Something about the song just spoke to me - it reminded me of my dad. And to hear Henley's sweet voice singing to such a lyrical piano line nearly broke my heart.

The song seemed to convey everything I was feeling about my parents separation... things that I couldn't find a way to say on my own. It wasn't just that I couldn't talk to anyone about what I was feeling, but it was more that I couldn't recognize the feelings myself. Something in the first few lines of that song let it out of me.

Remember when the days were long
and rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
with Mommy and Daddy standing by
When happily-ever-after fails
and we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
since Daddy had to fly

My parents reconciled several months after their separation, and things have gone smoothly between them since then. I never got a chance to deal with my grief, though... just supressed it all. I've never actually told the entire story to anyone in my life... this post is just a short summary, but I guess it's still a start.

Better therapy than talking to anyone about what I went through during those gloomy times, though, is when I flip on the radio and am greeted by "The End of the Innocence," which happens quite often, surprisingly... leading me to believe more every time in the strange, cosmic connection I seem to have with that song. I still pause whatever I'm doing, turn up the volume, and remember the meloncholy of that time of life.

“God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled.”

My friend Kevin got in a car accident last night. He hit a tree and was killed. I just found out a few hours ago.

I haven't seen him or even talked to him since he moved to Cincinnati after freshman year of high school... although I think about him a lot. He was one of my favorite people at Hanover Central, and one of the few who I remember fondly from my years spent there. He was just such a great guy... always smiling and laughing and making other people laugh. He had really chubby cheeks and used to hold his breath till his face turned blue. He had freckles on his nose and under his eyes.

I remember this one time at The House on Alexander Street... there was a whole bunch of us just hanging out... Gretchen, Mike, Bryant, Stewie, Tricia, Kyle, Kevin, Julie, and me... for some reason I went into one of the bedrooms for a while, and I heard Stephanie come in the house. We didn't get along, and once she saw that I wasn't with everyone else, she must have assumed I wasn't there and she started talking shit. Kevin was the first one to stick up for me and put that bitch in her place. Even though Stephanie was one of The Populars and probably made fun of Kevin for sticking up for me, he didn't care... he did it anyway.

He sat behind me in Mr. Landis's freshman English class. We worked on our impromptu speeches together. We made fun of Mr. Landis more than anyone else, I think, when he put up a collection can on his desk after someone stole his stapler. We exchanged knowing glances when Mr. Landis fastforwarded through the sex scene in the old version of "Romeo and Juliet." (Mr. Landis was obviously gay, we thought, and this only confirmed it.)

We used to call him Chaps. Or Chappy... Chapstick... Chapsalot... Chapsenstein... Chapalap... any variation of the word.

He got the nickname because when he was a little boy he went to the gas station with his mom and stole a tube of chapstick. He showed it to her later and she promptly took him back to the store and made him return the chapstick and apologize to the attendant. Somewhere along the line, we found out about this lovely anecdote and thus originated one of the best nicknames in the history of the universe.

He was one of the handful of people I was actually looking forward to seeing at our class reunions. One of the few decent guys I've met in my life and definitely one I'll remember fondly.

Rest in peace, Chappapotamos. Continue the Shenanigans.

"103 is forever when you're just a little kid..."

Just wanted to say Happy Birthday, Poppy Chuck... I think about you everyday.

We miss you.

"10-4, Good Buddy. 10-4."